Gone by Emma B.

I want to share this moving poem submitted as as assignment in a college-level creative writing class. Emma is recovered now, but her insightful poem gives those of us who are friends or family members of someone suffering from an eating disorder a lot to think about, Marcia

Gone

by Emma B.

I wonder what they thought when I left.

I wonder if they thought

anything at all.

I can’t remember

very many people

confronting me or asking

if I was okay.

I wasn’t okay.

One close friend, Anna,

in the beginning, said to me,

with a kind voice of concern,

that we used to be the same size.

I don’t remember exactly how I reacted.

I think I said, “I’m okay.”

I wonder what they thought when I left.

Mrs. Smith, my English teacher in middle school,

would say things to me like “Honey, you gotta eat.”

She was energetic and wise and honest, with short curly hair.

I don’t remember exactly how I reacted.

I probably became really shy, and said,

“I do.”

I wonder what they thought when I left.

The truth is,

I was gone even before they forced me to go away.

A ghost in black sweaters,

I silently roamed the hallways

of high school,

where every girl was prettier than me.

I wonder what they thought when I left.

My family sent me so many cards, especially my nanny and aunt.

I still have all of them.

I do believe they missed me,

but I can understand if they didn’t.

The memory

of parents yelling desperately at one another and at me,

about me,

as I sat on the bottom step of the staircase,

cheeks soaked with tears,

a barely eaten sandwich hidden under the thin wrapper.

I wonder what they thought when I left,

and what they thought when

I came back.

Nutritionist Marcia Herrin and Nancy Matsumoto, co-authors of The Parent’s Guide to Eating Disorders, Gūrze, 2007, Marcia is also author of the recently published Nutrition Counseling in the Treatment of Eating Disorders, Routledge, 2013.

Copyrighted by Marcia Herrin and Nancy Matsumoto.